It's been awhile so here's a batch of whole grain pizza that I cooked in the recently modified LBE. These were cooked at 650 degrees for 3 minutes. These were very light and I think I could have eaten three of these. I also made a whole grain bagel with one of the dough balls.

Boy that ham and pineapple sure looks good VR. Do you get your ham shaved very thin? It looks like that but I can't tell for sure. Have you ever tried using BBQ sauce instead of tomato pizza sauce for Hawaiian Pizza's? I use Sweet Baby Rays some times and it's a big hit.

Eric..... Thanks, I've never tried BBQ sauce but I have tried salsa. You can use it straight or add it to an existing tomato based pizza sauce. If it's chunky, I grind it up in my mini food processor first. It adds a nice red pepper zing to the pizza.

The ham I use is shaved very thin. It's prepackaged honey ham and I don't have the brand name available as I just took out the trash. I'm sure any quality ham shaved thin will work fine.

I ate the Hawaiian with onions and it was fantastic. Yesterday for lunch, I split the bagel, spread some onion and garlic cream cheese then layered on some chicken, red peppers and some greens. Both were nice and light and deliciouso!

As I've said in the past, pizza does not have to be junk food. For a 9" pizza I simply limit the meat and chesse to no more than 2-3 oz of each and use a whole grain crust. Use lean meat like roasted chicken breast or lean ham and stay away from the the fatty meats like pepperoni and sausage.

I'll be traveling next weekend so I made a trial batch of mini pizzas. I place these in individual ziplock bags and whenever I get the munchies, I just whip out one or two. They go great on planes, trains and automobiles and are a great healthy alternative to the road food blues.

These little darlings are about 6" in diameter, cooked in the Pizza Bella.

Villa Roma, I finally got around to trying your recipe posted earlier on this thread. I used KA white whole wheat flour at 100% hydration and cooked them on my 2stone at 850F for 1.5 minutes. I didn't do any mixing, just stirring with the spoon every now and then. Total ferment time was around 30 hours at room temp. I have to say I had a heck of a time working the dough, it was so sticky. The first pizza I sort of blew it on - the dough kept sticking and getting holes in it. I had to use a ton of bench flour on it. For the second one I decided to just knead a bit more flour into it right before shaping, and that one in fact worked out very well. I was worried it would negatively impact something else, but on every front the second pizza was good. Both pizzas had a very puffy crust just like your pictures (I didn't take any pictures unfortunately, family was waiting for foooood). The taste of the crust was also excellent. The first one I had to use too much flour on the paddle and it had that bitter taste on the bottom.

I would like to hear how you deal with the stickiness. Do you use a screen so you don't need to have them sliding off a paddle? My plan at this point for next time is about two hours before the bake to knead in a bunch more flour to make the dough manageable. This is related to what I did for my second pizza but will give the new flour time to ferment a bit. Also how big are your dough balls? I made two pizzas from your recipe and the crust was pretty thick in the middle.

I am going to have to rethink toppings - the crust has a stronger flavor and requires a different approach to the toppings so the crust flavor will not dominate. Sausage and mushrooms, not margherita.

Overall, there is a great pizza hiding here, but I've got a ways to go still..

I would like to hear how you deal with the stickiness. Do you use a screen so you don't need to have them sliding off a paddle? My plan at this point for next time is about two hours before the bake to knead in a bunch more flour to make the dough manageable. This is related to what I did for my second pizza but will give the new flour time to ferment a bit. Also how big are your dough balls? I made two pizzas from your recipe and the crust was pretty thick in the middle.

scottfmith....I think you're using too much hydration for the type of flour. I use GM whole wheat flour and the white whole wheat that you're using is a softer variety with less gluten. If you get a chance try the GM whole wheat at 95% hydration or stick with the WWW and lower the hydration until you get the desired results.

I flour the dough balls and then stretch them out pretty thin. I like the gutsy taste of whole grains especially when they get a little char on them. My dough balls weigh in at 200 grams for a 9" pizza.

Thanks -- I wasn't thinking that the flour could make so much difference. I like this KA white whole wheat a lot otherwise, so I am going to first get a recipe for it before moving on to other kinds of flour (also I have 5lbs of it to use up!).

Thanks -- I wasn't thinking that the flour could make so much difference. I like this KA white whole wheat a lot otherwise, so I am going to first get a recipe for it before moving on to other kinds of flour (also I have 5lbs of it to use up!).

Scott

Scott.....When I first started dealing with whole grains I made several 50 gram batches of dough until I found the ideal combination. I found that the recipes that were out there just didn't work. Most were just too heavy.

The goal was to make a 100% whole grain pizza that was light and tasty but was very healthy. I only use 2% olive oil and sugar in the dough and about 2 oz of lean meat and cheese each on a 9" pizza. I let the dough rise for 12-24 hours at room temperature to develop the gluten. Here's some shots of the pizza I made last week. These were 100% GM stone ground whole wheat flour. Notice the bubbles that are present and the puffy, plump crust, even with whole grain flour. The key is ultra high hydration and a long slow fermentation, cooked at high heat.

I'll be traveling back to to the east coast in late March so I'll see if I can score a bag or two of KA WWW and bring it back to my pizza lab for experimentation. Egor can hardly wait!

VR, your recipe certainly achieved that light airy crust for me, in spades! It was even puffier than my "normal" pizzas. I will try to take some pictures of my next batch. The next recipe I will reduce the hydration on a bit, to make it more workable. Actually I think next time I will keep the initial hydration very high, but work in a bit more flour two hours beforehand. My wife also bought a bag of KA WW (not white) and I will also be trying that out.

For the toppings I think meat is a good idea to balance the stronger tasting crust. Also I think something like eggplant would be good to try, and perhaps drizzling some balsamic vinegar on the top at the end.

Here are two more whole grain pizzas. I used 50% GM stone ground WW flour, 33% Hodgson mills stone ground WW graham flour and 17% Hodgson mills stone ground rye flour. They weren't as light as my last batch since I used only the GM flour last time but they were every bit as good. I also used a blend of fresh mozz, pecorino romano and Sargento grated mozz cheese.

The three basic techniques that I use are:1. High hydration dough. This really lightens up the dough, making it easy to mix and enables the crust to expand to it's fullest potential. I go with a 95% hydration rate, this will vary with the type of flour used so you'll have to experiment.2. Small amount of yeast coupled with a long, slow, room temperature fermentation. This will put the kabosh on the raw, bitter, grassy taste of the bran. It will also develop the glutenus to the maximus. You may also want to try white whole wheat flour. It's an albino strain of wheat that has all the nutritional properties of regular whole wheat without the strong flavor.3. High heat oven. Most home ovens only go up to around 500 degrees. I cook my whole grain pizzas at around 625 in the gas-fired LBE. I've never had good luck with an electric oven. As soon as you open the oven door to load the pizza, the temp drops 50 degrees and the heating element just doesn't have the muscle to get it back up to temp quickly enough. Any good cook will tell you caramelization equals flavor and you need the right temperature and oven for that. Remember, brown is good, black is burnt!

Some other techniques to get 100% whole wheat flour to work for pizza:4. Use whole wheat that is labeled as "bread" flour, i.e. fine grind.5. Use a big amount of sourdough! If you mix 25% whole wheat sourdough with 75% new whole wheat flour (plus water to your favorite hydration), and let it sit 8-12 hours it will be surprisingly extensible.

Here's some pizzas from my latest experiment. I used 100% Gold Medal WW flour at 85% hydration instead of using the stir technique and 95% hydration, I used my KA stand mixer with the spiral hook. I added flour until the dough just cleared the mixer bowl, total mix time was 10 minutes on speed 2. These were cooked at 750 degrees.

These pizzas came out OK but the lower hydration causes the rim to be a little more crusty. The dough was very easy to handle and stretch though. I may try the mixer with 90-95% hydration next.

I picked up a small bit of GM whole wheat flour to play with. Hopefully I have enough for a pie or two. Seriously though, I'm lucky to have a bakery wholesaler here in town that will sell to me. Even with the recent rise in flour costs, I'm getting it $2+ cheaper per five pound increments compared to my favorite grocer. Now it's time to experiment with some 100% WW recipes. I had been using KA WWW, and will continue to use that for cookies, cakes, etc., but for breads and pizza, it's red winter wheat time!

Hi Jag and welcome to the specialty grains section. It looks like you'll be doing some heavy duty baking with 50 pounds of flour. Did you have to take out a 2nd mortgage on the house? There's only a small handfull of whole grainers on the board but I suspect that may change soon. I'm looking forward to seeing some of your pizzas so hopefully you have a camera so you can show off some of your accomplishments.

Well, I baked a whole wheat pie @ 500 in my tile lined oven. It turned out really well, and the taste was so much better than white whole wheat that I had been using. I don't think that taste preference would be agreeable to everyone, but I just like that hearty nutty taste.

Villa Roma: I used your basic formula for 400g of flour on the first page. The only difference was I didn't have 30 hours, so I used a mixer and more instant yeast. I made the dough last night (400g flour) and split it into two balls, one out all night, one still in the fridge. Since you are agitating the dough in the mixer and forcing it around, the hydration ended up being less than 90% because I had to throw in 3 Tbs of flour to be able to work and divide it post mixer. I'm going to try the "stir" method and 30 hr rise with less yeast next. Villa, when you make your bagels, do you boil them at all or straight bake? Also, did you ever put vital wheat gluten in the dough?

Villa, when you make your bagels, do you boil them at all or straight bake? Also, did you ever put vital wheat gluten in the dough?

Thanks..

I don't boil the bagels. Sometimes I have some extra dough so I just poke a hole in the dough ball, stretch it out a little and toss it on the stone. I never use VWG but I normally use about 1/4 cup of white flour starter.

For the batch above I used my spiral hook KA mixer with no starter and an 8 1/2 hour ferment. I made the dough this morning and baked it this afternoon. Here's the recipe:

Put the flour, water and milk in the mixer bowl and stir to combine, let rest for 1 hour. Add remaining ingredients and mix on speed 2 for 10 minutes. The dough temp should be around 72 degrees. Let rise for about 3 hours and then just lightly knock down or stretch and fold the dough every few hours. Scale, let rise 1-2 hours and bake at 650 degrees for about 3 minutes.